nine and pay lower than fourteen dollars a week. She
remembered when the family floor had to iron Saturdays until 10 and 11
at night, instead of getting off at 12.45, as we did now. They stood
it in those days; but how? As it was now, not a girl on our floor but
whose feet ached more or less by 4 or 4.30. Ordinarily we stopped at
5.30. Everyone knew how everyone else felt that last half hour. During
a week with any holiday the girls had to work till 6.15 every night,
and Saturday afternoon. They all said--we discussed it early one
morning--that in such weeks they could iron scarcely anything that
last hour, their feet burned so.

The candy factory was hard--one stood nine hours, but the work was
very light.

The brassworks was hard--one sat, but the foot exercise was wearying
and the seat fearfully uncomfortable.

Ironing was hardest--one stood all day and used the feet for hard
pressure besides. Yet I was sorry to leave the laundry!

Perhaps it was just as well for me that Lucia could not talk English.
She might have used it on me, and already the left ear was talked off
by Irma. Miss Cross stood for just so much conversation, according to
her mood. Even if she were feeling very spry, our sixth-floor talk
could become only so general and lively before Miss Cross would call:
"Girls! girls! not so much noise!" If it were late in the afternoon
that would quiet us for the day--no one had enough energy to start up
again.

The first half hour Irma confided in me that she had cravings.
"Cravings? Cravings for what?" I asked her.

"Cravings for papers."

It sounded a trifle goatlike.

"Papers?"

"Yes, papers. I want to read papers on the lecture platform."

Whereat I heard all Irma's spiritual longings--cravings. She began in
school to do papers. That was two years ago. Since then she has often
been asked to read the papers she wrote in school before church
audiences. Just last Sunday she read one at her church in New York,
and four people asked her afterward for copies.

What was it about?

It was about the True Woman. When she wrote it, she began, "Dear
Teacher, Pupils, and Friends." But when she read it in churches she
skipped the Teacher and Pupils and began: "Dear Friends, ... now we
are met together on this memorable occasion to consider the subject of
the True Woman. First we must ask" (here Irma bangs down on a helpless
nightshirt and dries it out well beyond its time into a nice bunch of
wrinkles) "Wh